Your Head, Your Heart ,YOur Gut........

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Hello! Please help me on this one....When we hear we should "follow our heart, go with our gut-feeling,or our head", just how can I separate what is best? I am emotional-nurturing, so I go with my heart, I am not a clinical, logical person,so using the head is out, and I am not street-smart-say, so my gut-feeling is not there.. Does this also confuse anyone?And, am I choosing the right decision with using my emotions rather than a gut-feeling,or using my head? It simply confuses me, because all 3 choices give 3 different outcomes....

The way I interpret the 'head, heart, gut' thing is like this...

Heart - It's about feelings, right? It's about what makes you feel good about your decision on an emotional basis. Doesnt' mean it's right or that in the end you will still feel good about it.

Head - This is about using your science skills. Deductive reasoning. Take it apart, examine it and make your decision based upon the facts as you know them.

Gut - This is your 'survival' instinct based upon prior experiences. It warns you that you might be smacked in the next few seconds, because you brain remembers the last time you:
a. saw another person reacting like the one about to smack you
b. you were in another position like this and you got smacked

Does that help any?

Your gut can lie...your heart can control you any lead you astray...go with your head when possible.

I don't know, but can relate to the quandry. In hindsight, one can say "well, this or that choice seemed obviously the right thing for me to do"-though at the time, in present moment, the best decision isn't at all clear-and the possibilities for how to act/react seem dauntingly numerous.

My body (gut, sensations, physical perceptions), my emotions (interpretations of physical feelings translated into somewhat conscious awareness), and my intellect (cognition/intellect in frontal lobes of brain) all give me conflicting info. Believe I'm more in touch with & guided by the bottom-up (from peripheral bodily sensations towards brain) rather than top-down (brain leading or ruling the "lower" or more rudimentary "primitive" basic levels of experience) direction of processes.

In my experience, there is no way to tell which part of you is advising you for the best; any three of these parts of you can be wrong, mislead or even lie to you; there's no way to know what is best before making a decision; and even afterwards, who's to say that the two parts of you that advised different courses would not have led to a better outcome? I've seen and/or experienced all combinations of these driving parts of us being right or wrong in all manners.

I'm a bit of a romantic, so I'm fond of saying "follow your heart". Which is not to say that it is better than those other two parts of you at determining what is right... I've rarely known the heart to outright lie to someone, but it is something that can become confused easily; your heart may lead you to paradise, or right off a cliff...

I've seen people use their heads to justify choices in ways that are not truly rational or logical; sophistry, this is called; we use faulty reasoning that sounds correct if you don't think to hard about it, and then say we've "justified" something with our head. In this manner, people can use their heads to justify whatever they like, and few have the wisdom to always be able to tell the difference...

The gut is an interesting case; as wsmac pointed out, it's a very primal thing, and of those three parts of us, it is probably the hardest to refine to more than it is, or to understand very clearly. The gut typically gives something along the lines of a thumbs up, or thumbs down. Personally I have a lot of faith in my gut; that primal intuition enables me to sniff things out and notice things that those other two parts of me would miss. But once again - infallible? No... But of the three parts of you, your gut is most likely the one to protect you from harm.

In any case, different humans will have differing levels of ability and awareness in each of these centers; which again, makes answering your question nigh impossible. Which of these driving forces in you is best refined, most powerful, most often correct, least often wrong? I know not. And as I started with, even knowing that, knowing what to do, which is best, is beyond our reach.

I shoot for a synthesis of these three driving parts; ideally, they will all tend or at least average out to a given direction; but as you've noted, sometimes this is not the case. To be pulled in three directions by these three parts of you must be a maddening situation indeed. And even with a good synthesis, there are still no guarantees.

In your case, the smartass, happy-go-lucky rouge in me says, just roll a three-sided die, and trust to fortune. In all likelihood, you’ll get just as good of an outcome as you might if you spent all of your time and precious energy trying to know the unknowable. Humans cannot foresee the future.

Good fortune,

- Icarus has a lucky two-schilling piece for yes/no questions…

I tend to end up going with my head... but there have been occasions when I've gone with my gut. My heart? I guess that'll be the more spontaneous me being me kind of thing... as in - not feeling like a fool being my high eccentric weird self... it goes down pretty well with the right people afterall - it's me.